Maddening mode is out

[Cysx]

12 minutes ago, Lysithea said:

What are good strategies how to fight the boss in Claude's paralogue. 

It oneshots / ORKO'es the majority and no one is to able to take two hits except for a rallied Ingrid. 

I could use the same strategy as I used agaisnt against the boss as in Linhardt's / Leonie's chapter, but ambush reolinforcements (of course) ruin it.  

Also my team is only ~level 35 in average, so maybe too low. 

The reinforcements don't move if no one is in their range. At least not from the second wave onward, I assume the first is the same. So they can be ignored with a bit of prep.

You could spend the first turn breaking and using the last gambit with your rallied Ingrid, so that the boss is forced to attack her. Do leave on or two tiles so that you get his stun at the start of the next turn, and then throw everything you  have at him.
If you don't have the offense to kill him on turn 2 + a couple attacks on turn 3, might be best to hold off on doing it for the time being.

[Johnzin]

On 10/20/2019 at 9:04 AM, DefyingFates said:

To everyone saying to attack outside of his range, doesn't him having Distant Counter render that a moot point? I didn't know he hit Res though, so that'll be helpful, thanks!

Also, this has been bugging me since first facing him: the game says you need to take out the source of the reinforcements - Indech is the source, right? There's no hidden mage in a corner of the map? Because I've checked all over across my multiple runs...

P.S. I was able to back up my saves recently, so I may do my (Blue Lions) NG run soon, wish me luck!

I'm still waiting to see what DLC Wave 3 is like before buying the Season Pass though, which means I'm also waiting until then for a full replay of all routes.

Yeah, I just started this paralogue too on SS Maddening. Does the reinforcements end through some method like killing a general or bishop?

[PPPPPPP270]

I just finished my Maddening Silver Snow run. 

I was a bit disappointed with part 2 levels. Most of them after Pallardo and the Randolph level was a breeze. Even though I heard the final level is really hard I thought it wasn't too bad. Outside of Rhea herself the map itself wasn't bad. 

A few caveats, I abused the garden a lot to grow speed carrots and used the kitchen to give +2-4 speed every battle. This shouldn't affect much in part 1 but once part 2 started rolling I had a handful of units double most enemies. 41 attack speed is the magic number to double any enemy that wasn't a sword user or flier in the endgame.

My final team consisted of 4 bow knights one of them was my Byleth. 

I changed my mind on Dorathea I think she's good. I thought she was a weak mage because of bad growths but her spell list is fantastic and rally charm is nice to have. 

Ferdinand deserves to be on the same tier as units like Petra Lysithea Felix, and Ingrid because of how strong his personal skill is and amazing strengths. He was pretty much impossible to kill if he was full HP past the time skip with alert stance and evasion stacking. I didn't do the +20 sword avoid build because I'm not stupid to throw away the dancer class. 

[Johnzin]

14 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

I just finished my Maddening Silver Snow run. 

I was a bit disappointed with part 2 levels. Most of them after Pallardo and the Randolph level was a breeze. Even though I heard the final level is really hard I thought it wasn't too bad. Outside of Rhea herself the map itself wasn't bad. 

A few caveats, I abused the garden a lot to grow speed carrots and used the kitchen to give +2-4 speed every battle. This shouldn't affect much in part 1 but once part 2 started rolling I had a handful of units double most enemies. 41 attack speed is the magic number to double any enemy that wasn't a sword user or flier in the endgame.

My final team consisted of 4 bow knights one of them was my Byleth. 

I changed my mind on Dorathea I think she's good. I thought she was a weak mage because of bad growths but her spell list is fantastic and rally charm is nice to have. 

Ferdinand deserves to be on the same tier as units like Petra Lysithea Felix, and Ingrid because of how strong his personal skill is and amazing strengths. He was pretty much impossible to kill if he was full HP past the time skip with alert stance and evasion stacking. I didn't do the +20 sword avoid build because I'm not stupid to throw away the dancer class. 

What units did you use? I am curious of your approach on tackling the strong / fast enemies.

Right now I am on Ch 15. I chose to farm a lottttt of the Str + 1 for Seteth/Ferdie/Petra for flying swift strike/brave axe. Found it helpful to ensure you can kill before retaliate than doubling due to speed. I have 3 snipers (bernie, shamir, leonie), Leonie prob gonna be the only BK. EO M!Byleth, Vantage (omw for Wrath) caspar, Bishop Lind, Bishop Lys, Dancer Dorthea (I agree, meteor is too good). Currently struggling on Leonie/Lindhart paralogue since never did it before.

I agree. Ferdie is needs to be rated highly with his personal for maddening. Usable with Jeralt merc for early game shaky dodging. That hit bonus really helps for swift striking. 

[DefyingFates]

Finally playing Maddening mode! I'm on a NG file with Blue Lions, just finished the Mock Battle of the Eagle and Lion. I just have two questions:

1. When should I move on from Training weapons? I've been using them exclusively until now and had to switch to Iron+ weapons to finish the mock battle, so what weapons should I be using now and about when should I move onto Steel, Silver, etc? Also, what other weapons should I be trying to get my hands on? My best units (the ones who survived that last map) are ~Lv 15 while the others are Lv 12~13.

2. How do I decide who gets what stat boost? Giving Lysithea all my magic boosting items makes sense since she's such an amazing nuke, but every other item has too many recipients. I have a Speed Carrot for example; should I give it to Byleth or Felix? Basically, what do you look for when deciding who gets what?

[Shadow Mir]

28 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

just finished the Mock Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

How bad was it? Did you have the same crap that @zuibangde had happen to him happen to you too?

[Wuzzy]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

Finally playing Maddening mode! I'm on a NG file with Blue Lions, just finished the Mock Battle of the Eagle and Lion. I just have two questions:

1. When should I move on from Training weapons? I've been using them exclusively until now and had to switch to Iron+ weapons to finish the mock battle, so what weapons should I be using now and about when should I move onto Steel, Silver, etc? Also, what other weapons should I be trying to get my hands on? My best units (the ones who survived that last map) are ~Lv 15 while the others are Lv 12~13.

2. How do I decide who gets what stat boost? Giving Lysithea all my magic boosting items makes sense since she's such an amazing nuke, but every other item has too many recipients. I have a Speed Carrot for example; should I give it to Byleth or Felix? Basically, what do you look for when deciding who gets what?

1) I switched to Iron+ weapons once my units broke their training weapons honestly (or once they are able to double/not get doubled cconsistently with iron weapons). I use steel weapons for combat arts or to last hit enemies, I start switching to Silver around chapter 11. Killer+ weapons, Iron+, and Brave weapons are the best weapons imo.

2) I gave my speed carrots to my front line units, my Bow Knights relied on cooking Speed boosts and crits mainly so, Speed Carrots should go to your best front liner (that has good Speed to begin with, so most like your Wyvern Lord or Lord).

Edited October 25, 2019 by Lunarly

[Arachnofiend]

I'm into the timeskip on my Verdant Wind run and using anything other than Iron+ for your standard weapon still feels shaky; the better weapons are just heavy enough to cut a unit's damage in half so I usually only use Silver when I wouldn't have doubled anyways. The exception being Cyril, who's been using Silver Bows since I recruited him and has been one of my most reliable units for killing the toughest enemies. Point Blank Volley is really good you guys

[AxelVDP]

18 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Finally playing Maddening mode! I'm on a NG file with Blue Lions, just finished the Mock Battle of the Eagle and Lion. I just have two questions:

1. When should I move on from Training weapons? I've been using them exclusively until now and had to switch to Iron+ weapons to finish the mock battle, so what weapons should I be using now and about when should I move onto Steel, Silver, etc? Also, what other weapons should I be trying to get my hands on? My best units (the ones who survived that last map) are ~Lv 15 while the others are Lv 12~13.

2. How do I decide who gets what stat boost? Giving Lysithea all my magic boosting items makes sense since she's such an amazing nuke, but every other item has too many recipients. I have a Speed Carrot for example; should I give it to Byleth or Felix? Basically, what do you look for when deciding who gets what? 

I honestly used training weapons up to the endgame, especially training axes, it honestly depends on your units growths, if you happen to be lucky with your str and speed growths you can easily move on to iron weapons, you should decide your weapon loadout based on the stats of the units you're facing. steel weapons are still good to have around for the extra dmg output with combat arts in situations where you would be doubled anyway or that you don't get targeted in enemy phase
the same reasoning goes for your stat boosters, you should give them to units who need to reach certain benchmarks (check enemy stats). for non speed/dex/cha stats I find it better to give the stat boosters to someone who has already decent stat in that area (random example: you get way more value from a def boosting item if you give it to dedue so that he takes 3x2 dmg instead of 5x2 instead that giving the same def booster to one unit with a shaky defence who gets killed anyway)

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

4 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

I honestly used training weapons up to the endgame, especially training axes, it honestly depends on your units growths, if you happen to be lucky with your str and speed growths you can easily move on to iron weapons, you should decide your weapon loadout based on the stats of the units you're facing. steel weapons are still good to have around for the extra dmg output with combat arts in situations where you would be doubled anyway or that you don't get targeted in enemy phase
the same reasoning goes for your stat boosters, you should give them to units who need to reach certain benchmarks (check enemy stats). for non speed/dex/cha stats I find it better to give the stat boosters to someone who has already decent stat in that area (random example: you get way more value from a def boosting item if you give it to dedue so that he takes 3x2 dmg instead of 5x2 instead that giving the same def booster to one unit with a shaky defence who gets killed anyway)

For bolded:

How can we check for that? Auxiliary battles?

[AxelVDP]

go into battle and check the enemy stats? you can use stat boosters while in battle prep

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

6 minutes ago, AxelVDP said:

go into battle and check the enemy stats? you can use stat boosters while in battle prep

Yeah, ok.

[AxelVDP]

I'm sorry if I misunderstood the question

in the battle prep menu you can use the map option and hover on units and by pressing X you can see their stats, if that's what you did not know

[PPPPPPP270]

On 10/25/2019 at 1:07 PM, Johnzin said:

What units did you use? I am curious of your approach on tackling the strong / fast enemies.

Right now I am on Ch 15. I chose to farm a lottttt of the Str + 1 for Seteth/Ferdie/Petra for flying swift strike/brave axe. Found it helpful to ensure you can kill before retaliate than doubling due to speed. I have 3 snipers (bernie, shamir, leonie), Leonie prob gonna be the only BK. EO M!Byleth, Vantage (omw for Wrath) caspar, Bishop Lind, Bishop Lys, Dancer Dorthea (I agree, meteor is too good). Currently struggling on Leonie/Lindhart paralogue since never did it before.

I agree. Ferdie is needs to be rated highly with his personal for maddening. Usable with Jeralt merc for early game shaky dodging. That hit bonus really helps for swift striking. 

I used all the house students in Black Eagles even Edelgard and Hubert. I try to avoid using them but Edelgard is way too good to not use with her high charm and high strength making her an excellent bow user despite having a weakness in it. The trick is to make them useful short term. Make Edelgard an archer and have her do chip damage. For late game and dealing with fast enemies, I just pelted them with bows. But it's easy to bait enemies with alert stance wyverns then finish them off with bows. I did have War Master Caspar who is a walking nuke but never did get him quick riposte since he can't kite back to safety with canto and 8 movement bow knights. 

My bow knights were Byleth Bernie, Leonie, and Felix. Interestingly enough Leonie and Felix were the shittier bow knights but useful enough because of 4 range 8 movement is balanced. My trick was to give your potential archers death blow. That's too much effort for recruited students sadly. All your starting students can easily fit in death blow especially Eagles where half your team is good with axes. 

For the Leonie and Linhardt paralouge, for the last part I recommend only using gambits until you can get rid of his quick riposte on his last HP bar. He should be easy to wear down and make sure to use a gambit to take aggro on turns where you can't kill him. Save a resonant lightning for him to easily break.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

On 10/24/2019 at 7:02 PM, Cysx said:

The reinforcements don't move if no one is in their range. At least not from the second wave onward, I assume the first is the same. So they can be ignored with a bit of prep.

Thanks for the hint (again)! 

The reinforcements never moved, if no one is in their range. 

I was worried their appearance location is based on my units's location, but thankfully it was not the case. 

The Boss itself took a bit time (each turn per phase), but easy with hit and run strategy and Annette's rally. This chapter is another proof why Annette is so useful in maddening. 

 

Unfortunately I did a big mistake in chapter 17. I thought, since it is a battle of the Houses, fallen units would come back in the next chapter. But it was not the case. Flayn and Linhardt died. Latter is no big deal since I still could use Manuela as warp user, but Flayn's death really hurts. She had great magic, so was a great rescue user. Now a very handy strategy element is gone. BTW it only happened because ambush reinforcements (paladins) appeared in the first enemy phase next to the area my units started, so not even a chance to avoid. 

[Johnzin]

19 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

I used all the house students in Black Eagles even Edelgard and Hubert. I try to avoid using them but Edelgard is way too good to not use with her high charm and high strength making her an excellent bow user despite having a weakness in it. The trick is to make them useful short term. Make Edelgard an archer and have her do chip damage. For late game and dealing with fast enemies, I just pelted them with bows. But it's easy to bait enemies with alert stance wyverns then finish them off with bows. I did have War Master Caspar who is a walking nuke but never did get him quick riposte since he can't kite back to safety with canto and 8 movement bow knights. 

My bow knights were Byleth Bernie, Leonie, and Felix. Interestingly enough Leonie and Felix were the shittier bow knights but useful enough because of 4 range 8 movement is balanced. My trick was to give your potential archers death blow. That's too much effort for recruited students sadly. All your starting students can easily fit in death blow especially Eagles where half your team is good with axes. 

For the Leonie and Linhardt paralouge, for the last part I recommend only using gambits until you can get rid of his quick riposte on his last HP bar. He should be easy to wear down and make sure to use a gambit to take aggro on turns where you can't kill him. Save a resonant lightning for him to easily break.

Ah I was stuck because of the constant reinforcement, but was able to figure out that putting units at the spawn points stop infinite spawning for this chapter. Yeah, used gambits to pull aggro and just easily killed the boss with thunderbrand EO byleth S+ swords.

 

There needs to be a guide out there for if you can stop spawn since some chapters, enemies will still spawn but around the blocked tile. 

. 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by Johnzin

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

So, what are the best classes for Dedue, Gilbert, and Raphael besides being on the bench (I am unlikely to put students on the bench)? I was thinking Fortress Knight because those guys tank so many physical hits in a mode where enemy speed is high enough to double most units anyway.

[arem]

Dedue and Gilbert are both excellent fortress knights.  Dedue in particularly is amazing in the armored knight line for most of the game.  Gilbert somewhat less so, but his main problem, as well as Dedue's problem, is that magic is everywhere in the Blue Lion endgame and being physically invulnerable just does not cut it anymore.

Raphael seems to do be best as Wyvern Lord or Warmaster.  I am not sure how much of that is Raphael and how much of that is just those classes being good, however.

[AxelVDP]

Dedue can easily become a great knight even with a riding weakness, since the lowest riding requirement is C and he has strengths in lances+axes.
In general, I really dislike fortress knight low move in the late game where the rest of your team is riding something, you can't tank in the frontlines if you're always lagging behind. Early to mid game they are useable tho.
Gilbert has also easy access to great knight (it's basically free), but has slightly less tanking potential than Dedue, he'll still take lotsa damage if you don't invest him in some extra way (def stat boosters/authority training asap to give him good prt battallions), he also has an easy time getting to wyvern rider/lord, if you so fancy, but that kinda depends on your team composition

[Johnzin]

4 hours ago, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

So, what are the best classes for Dedue, Gilbert, and Raphael besides being on the bench (I am unlikely to put students on the bench)? I was thinking Fortress Knight because those guys tank so many physical hits in a mode where enemy speed is high enough to double most units anyway.

I can only speak for Dedue. I benched Gilbert immediately, he is good for adjutant guard I guess. When he came back, he was underleveled even though I used him throughout the entire pre time skip. His def was really useful for endgame as a fortress knight. With seiros sheild + personal + duscur battalion (+10 def), he was used to bait WM and Assassin's to take no damage. 

[Silly]

6 hours ago, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

So, what are the best classes for Dedue, Gilbert, and Raphael besides being on the bench (I am unlikely to put students on the bench)? I was thinking Fortress Knight because those guys tank so many physical hits in a mode where enemy speed is high enough to double most units anyway.

The actual serious answer is Wyvern Lord, Wyvern Lord, and Wyvern Lord. Yes, even Dedue, who has a flying weakness.

It seems kind of silly, but that class just has so many benefits that you will find that even otherwise "bad" units can still perform when reclassed to Wyvern. This is especially true for a unit like Gilbert, who actually joins with really solid bases. Reclassing him to Wyvern Rider instantly patches up his abysmal speed, and he can start doing reasonably well as a general combat unit afterwards.

If you want to do something else (sometimes playing with a bunch of Wyverns might not be your thing), then War Master is also a pretty solid class with very good offense. Great Knight is an alternative option, if you really want a tank. It's probably a better choice compared to Fortress Knight because the extra movement and canto are very valuable, and more than makes up for the slight defense difference.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

9 minutes ago, Silly said:

The actual serious answer is Wyvern Lord, Wyvern Lord, and Wyvern Lord. Yes, even Dedue, who has a flying weakness.

It seems kind of silly, but that class just has so many benefits that you will find that even otherwise "bad" units can still perform when reclassed to Wyvern. This is especially true for a unit like Gilbert, who actually joins with really solid bases. Reclassing him to Wyvern Rider instantly patches up his abysmal speed, and he can start doing reasonably well as a general combat unit afterwards.

If you want to do something else (sometimes playing with a bunch of Wyverns might not be your thing), then War Master is also a pretty solid class with very good offense. Great Knight is an alternative option, if you really want a tank. It's probably a better choice compared to Fortress Knight because the extra movement and canto are very valuable, and more than makes up for the slight defense difference.

Well, I should have mentioned that this is for Maddening, where exp gains in all areas (except maybe Professor exp) are lowered.

[Silly]

1 minute ago, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

Well, I should have mentioned that this is for Maddening, where exp gains in all areas (except maybe Professor exp) are lowered.

Yes.

The serious answer is still Wyvern. It has good offense, fairly decent bulk, and has enough speed that even super slow units like Dedue and Raphael might not get doubled, even on Maddening.

Also, having unrestricted mobility and canto is even more useful when enemies are strong, because it opens up a lot more options for which enemies you can safely attack on player phase, since you can always canto to a tile that has less danger afterwards.

[AxelVDP]

Wyvern is amazing but I don't really fancy the idea of having shit battallions on half of my team, especially when gambits are also just as broken as wyverns.

imo Dedue is overall more useful as a designated tank rather than ""wasting"" a wyvern slot

 

edit: I don't mean it as a "don't use wyverns" before this causes confusion lol, just saying that you probably don't need more than 5-6 flying units in your team especially considering the lack of flying battallions in a ng setting

Edited October 30, 2019 by AxelVDP

[DehNutCase]

On 10/29/2019 at 3:24 PM, Azure, Roundabouted Out said:

So, what are the best classes for Dedue, Gilbert, and Raphael besides being on the bench (I am unlikely to put students on the bench)? I was thinking Fortress Knight because those guys tank so many physical hits in a mode where enemy speed is high enough to double most units anyway.

In my experience dodge tanks are easier to make than regular tanks. For some reason enemies occasionally walk around with 80 Atk but just about nobody had more than 120 hit. And forests give 30 avoid for some god damn reason. That said, you don't really need more than 1 or 2 people who can consistently take enemy phase combats, so the rest of your team can be devoted to underleveled people who need to focus fire enemies to bring them down. (This is what I'm assuming you'll have Dedue, Gilbert, and Raphael doing---being underleveled mooks.)

 

If you want consistent performance whole game long then Soldier (make sure to get Reposition) -> Cavalier -> Paladin makes everyone useful while giving you tons of spare skill exp for doing stuff like getting a high level of Authority or getting some extra class proficiencies for their base stats. Wyverns are a nice option if you're fine with the first 20 levels, the hardest parts of the game, being even harder.* Females can go the Pegasus -> Falcon route and just breeze through the whole game, but males have to sidetrack through Cavalier before going Wyvern if you want to keep the team's mobility high, which is pretty annoying.

 

*My Avatar was level 30 around the time my second stringers were level 22ish, and this was pretty much the entire game past a certain point:

Spoiler

 

(Mind that the Avatar chugged like 30 speed worth of stat boosters over the course of the run, 'normal' units would need Alert Stance+ active to reach 100+ avoid.)